What’s next for Macy’s at Westfield Sarasota Square

You can already see the merchandise thinning at the Macy’s at Westfield Sarasota Square.

Since the department store giant announced on Wednesday that the south Sarasota store and 67 other Macy’s are closing, the gaps on the racks have become a little more evident. I halfway wondered if the patches of missing cookware I saw in the home store and the minor depletion of suitcases was just my imagination or even the aftermath of the Christmas boom.

But just a few miles north on U.S. 41, the merchandise is lush at Macy’s sister store at Westfield Southgate.

It’s the first little sign of yet another evolution for Southwest Florida retail.

The Sarasota Square Macy’s is one of four in our region. Once that Macy’s closes we’re going to have 143,000-square-feet of blank space that will need filling.

And locally Westfield has a track record of addressing empty anchors.

Dillard’s exit from Sarasota Square in 2009 resulted in bulldozers and Southwest Florida’s first Costco Wholesale. The same thing happened when Saks Fifth Avenue packed its bags at Southgate for the Mall at University Town Center in 2014. Today, the high-end theater’s guests dine and recline in front of movie screens on the same land where shoppers once browsed clothing racks and handbags. The vacant Dillard’s site there, too, is finally seeing some movement. Benderson Development Co., which owns the empty department store at Southgate, is carving up that space to make room for Lucky’s Market, LA Fitness and potentially a third tenant.

I spoke with Jim Ralston, the general manager for Westfield’s two Sarasota malls, the day after the Macy’s announcement. He told me he was “a little surprised and a little disappointed” that Macy’s decided to leave Sarasota Square, but he’s also optimistic. He didn’t elaborate, but he said he knows of three or four strong opportunities for that land. Nationally, retail is moving away from giant box stores and traditional brick-and-mortar shopping. Nothing is finalized at this point, and Ralston said managers will do what’s in the best interest of the mall, which could mean another large tenant or a complete revitalization. Dividing up that Macy’s could make room for a few new and potentially unconventional tenants. A new family restaurant, too, could be a big win for the property, he said.

Either way, he doesn’t expect the empty space to linger long.

The mall and the land could present a challenge though, said Steven Larkin, a senior commercial adviser for Michael Saunders and Co. There’s no shortage of 1970s-style malls in this country, and there are four other indoor shopping centers within a 55-mile radius of downtown Sarasota. Sarasota Square has U.S. 41 frontage with an average daily traffic count of 39,000 vehicles, but even with that in its favor, it lacks visibility. When drivers pass it they see trees and maybe the JCPenney, Larkin told me. It’s a shame the mall can’t just take the property and spin it on its axis. The strongest side, he said, is actually the back end that Costco Wholesale, Prime Serious Steak, Ruby Tuesday and Barefoot Bar and Grill call home.

Whatever Westfield decides to do, it needs to be innovative and outside of the box.

If Sarasota Square takes on another department store, Larkin suspects the mall will be repatching that Macy’s gap again in less than a decade. The shopping mall would be better off exploring a mixed-use or even a medical component, he said. Traditional anchor stores have lost their appeal with consumers.

He doesn’t have much hope for Sears at Sarasota Square either. Sears’ and Kmart‘s parent company also announced closures this week. Sarasota Square made the cut this time, but the chain is hurting and that space isn’t booming. Portions of the 224,713-square-foot site, which includes the auto center, have been listed for lease for several months, and Sears’ parent company was advertising it for revitalization at the International Council of Shopping Centers conference in Orlando last year.

It may not be long until that mall has two blank spaces to cope with, but that kind of change may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Between Macy’s, Sears and their parking lots, Westfield could potentially have 25 acres of land to mold.

For some perspective, that’s roughly the same size as the former trailer park at U.S. 41 and Stickney Point Road that Benderson Development intends to turn into a hotel, residential and retail mash-up. If you add JCPenney to the struggling department store mix, the three take up just slightly less land than the Ed Smith Sports Complex.

That’s a lot of room for creativity.

So today we have a few blank spaces on Macy’s store shelves.

In a few weeks we’ll have gaping hole in the shopping center.

But if Westfield keeps up with its reputation, we’ll see something dramatically different than three marginally similar department stores.

And in the meantime, it’s not like we don’t have three other Macy’s in the region to shop at.